← Happier with Gretchen Rubin
Happier with Gretchen Rubin
Ep. 535: Create Your “Summer of __,” Some Reading Recommendations & Listeners’ Favorite Words
00:36:39
Loading summary
Transcript153 lines
- [00:01]
Gretchen Rubin
Guess what? Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. You heard right, 99%. If you don't think so, maybe it's time to face facts. You're stuck in the past. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen report. Learn more at discover.com Credit Card Gretch.
- [00:22]
Elizabeth Craft
May is just such a time of celebrations. And I know for us when we're going to host a celebration or take something to a celebration, I always go to Whole Food.
- [00:33]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes, Whole Foods Market helps you save on everything you need with the quality and ingredient standards that we expect. One thing we love to do in the summer is grill and the house brand of whole Foods Market365 by Whole Foods Market has all the essential at daily low prices that you need for the summer. Save on May celebrations with great everyday prices at Whole Foods Market.
- [01:00]
Elizabeth Craft
Lemonade.
- [01:10]
Gretchen Rubin
Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast where we talk about ideas for making our lives happier, healthier, more productive and more creative. This week we'll talk about why we might choose to do a summer of blank. You fill in the blank and we'll have a roundup of listeners favorite words which was so delightful. I'm Gretchen Rubin, a writer who studies happiness, good habits, secrets of adulthood, human nature. I'm in my little home office in New York City and joining me today from Los Angeles is my sister Elizabeth Craft, who just had a birthday. Happy birthday again Elizabeth.
- [01:43]
Elizabeth Craft
That's me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer living in la. And thank you Gretchen. I had a very nice birthday.
- [01:50]
Gretchen Rubin
Oh that's good. But Elizabeth, before we jump in, we had an interesting question from a listener.
- [01:55]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, Joy said in the time I've listened to the Happier podcast, I've gone from being in an unhappy long term relationship. 10 years I'll never get back. But they taught me a lot about myself. So not entirely wasted to being happily married with a 10 month old daughter. During the early years listening to the show, I didn't intend to have children, which meant I didn't keep track of the parenting related tips, hacks and suggestions that you made. Of course, now that I have an amazing little girl of my own, I am constantly listening out for mentions of your relationships with Eleanor, Eliza and Jack. I also love hearing Sarah talk about Violet on Happier in Hollywood. I found some of your suggestions to be incredibly helpful. Things like getting professional pictures taken which I have already done and plan to continue in the future, and starting traditions early, particularly around minor holidays. Etc. My question for both of you and Sarah, if she's willing and your listeners is what do you consider to be the best parenting advice or suggestions that you think all new mothers should know or that you wish you'd known yourself when you had very young children? I found that people have these little nuggets of wisdom they don't even considering worth passing on, and they turn out to be absolutely invaluable. An example is a friend who said in passing that they never checked the clock when the baby woke up during the night for a feed. This was a game changer for me because it meant I wasn't thinking, oh no, it's 3:00am and we have an early baby class appointment. Visit with a friend. I just feed my daughter and go back to sleep without the added stress of worrying about the time. Would love to hear any and all suggestions.
- [03:36]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, I love this. I love any collection of advice and hacks and tips.
- [03:40]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes.
- [03:40]
Gretchen Rubin
So listeners, send in ours. We'll be thinking of ours. Elizabeth, I think this could be a really fun thing to do.
- [03:46]
Elizabeth Craft
Absolutely. And it's funny that she said people don't even think about passing things on.
- [03:50]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
- [03:51]
Elizabeth Craft
Having a baby is one of those things where you're a blank slate, you know, nothing. So what seems obvious to someone else is a total revelation. So I think she's right that there's a lot to be gained from this.
- [04:05]
Gretchen Rubin
But also, as we often notice, sometimes advice that is useful in one context ends up being just as useful in a different context. And like this thing about don't worry if you wake up in the middle of the night. Well, with Taffy. So Taffy is an amazing sleeper. She will often just sleep straight through the night. But the other night she Woke up at 4am and I remember it did really stress me out because I'm like, it's 4:00am what does this mean? And am I gonna be able to go back to sleep or should I just get up or. I just got myself all worked up and thinking about the 4am Ness of it. Instead of just being like, it is very deep night, I can quickly take her out, bring her back in, and everybody go back to sleep and then just let it unfold from there. Had I known about that at the time, I think I would have handled it differently and probably saved myself a lot of unnecessary stress because in the end, that is what I did. It didn't make any difference that I did all these calculations well.
- [04:52]
Elizabeth Craft
And it's true. Anytime you wake up, really?
- [04:54]
Gretchen Rubin
It's true. Anytime you wake up, really. Yeah. It just adds to the stress.
- [04:57]
Elizabeth Craft
At no point does it Help to say, oh, my gosh, 3am I have to be up in three and a half hours.
- [05:03]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes, yes, yes. So send in your hacks, your tips, your strategies, your resources, and we will pass them along. And now, Elizabeth, it's our try this at home suggestion. And we've had this try this at home suggestion before. It's the season for this suggestion, and it is the try this at home tip to pick your summer of blank. What is it you want your summer to be? Is there something you want to get done in your summer? Is there something theme you want to have reflected in your summer? It could be something arduous you want to get done. It could be some spirit, like Summer of Adventure. You can take it any way you like. Alyssa, do you have any. Have you started giving this any thought? What are you thinking of?
- [05:42]
Elizabeth Craft
Yeah, Gretch, I love doing this because summer can just slip by unnoticed, especially in LA where, you know, seasons are less dramatic. Also in television, where summer often doesn't feel like summer. So I like defining it in a way to kind of eke more out of it.
- [06:01]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. Well, it's that it's my secret of adulthood that something that can be done at any time is often done at no time. And so if there's something that you want to incorporate in your life, it can be helpful to say, well, why didn't I make it my summer theme? And then that's a time when it will get done. But I completely agree, Lucy. I think I have this fantasy left over from when we were in grade school where you would have these endless long summers, and it felt like they were wide open and they stretched out endlessly. And before the summer, I kind of am thinking, well, I'll do that in the summer. I'll do that in the summer. Like, I'll have so much time that I'll just be looking for things to get done. But as an adult, we don't have that experience.
- [06:37]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, not usually.
- [06:38]
Gretchen Rubin
Not usually. So in the past, I often tied this for a reading. Like, I'll give myself a reading theme. Like, I had my Summer of Proust, where I read Proust, which was great. My Summer of Virginia Woolf, where I reread a lot of Virginia Woolf, which I loved. I had my summer of rereading, which I loved because I love to reread. I had my Summer of Abraham Lincoln, which didn't really work out because I was looking for a very certain kind of investigation of Abraham Lincoln, and I couldn't find those books, and it just fell apart. And you know, for read 25 and 25, this is. If you're doing read 25 and 25, this could be fun. You could choose an author the way I chose Proust or Wolf.
- [07:12]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. And you know, Gretchen, I always love a theme for anything.
- [07:16]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes, it's fun. It makes it feel coherent. So I have a great idea for this summer's theme for me, my Summer of Blank.
- [07:22]
Elizabeth Craft
Oh, yay.
- [07:23]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay, so may. I'm having the Summer of Sundoku. So if you don't know what Sengoku is, it is a Japanese word that refers to the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials, but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them. The term is also used to refer to unread books on a bookshelf meant for reading later. Because what I realize is I am truly starting to feel oppressed by the number of unread books that I have on my shelves. I want to read them all, but it's like, this one is like a light read and I should read it on a plane. And this one is a really heavy read, and I need to do it when I have time to really explore it. And this one, I'm not sure if I'm going to like it. I just have, like, all these different reasons why Amarin. And then I have all this reading I need to do for my research into the empty nest. And I was thinking, what am I going to do? Because I was, like, trying to figure out. I was thinking maybe I'd have my summer of re reading Bridget Noble's journals, which is something that I really want to do. But as I was thinking about different themes like that, I was feeling really a lot of stress. Cause I was like, but then I won't be able to read any of the books that are piling up on my bookshelves. And then my library list. And so I was feeling this conflict. And then I thought, well, maybe that should be the summer I should make serious dent on my shelves. And then next summer, I can do the summer of reading Virginia Woolf's journals because I won't feel this opportunity cost pressure so much. And I just have always loved this word sendoku. And so I love Summer of Sengoku. Like, if you see it written, the word is actually T S U N D O K U. So it is actually T S U. But if you say it, it's alliteration. Summer of Sundoku. So I am very excited about my Summer of Sendoku. I cannot wait to tackle those shelves.
- [09:04]
Elizabeth Craft
That's so fun. And I Bet a lot of people listening to this. Gretchen will now also jump on that theme.
- [09:09]
Gretchen Rubin
Let's do it.
- [09:10]
Elizabeth Craft
Many of us relate to the stack of books on the nightstand phenomenon well.
- [09:15]
Gretchen Rubin
So before I was married, I was very disciplined where I would never allow myself to get even more than three books ahead of what I had bought. So I was like, if you buy it, you read it. But Jamie just showed me that you can just buy books willy nilly. And of course I was like, ooh, that's great. I didn't know you could do that. And so now and then with the library, of course, you can just check out anything you want. And I do. Definitely. My reach exceeds my grasp. But that's fine with the library because you just turn them back in. But I have all these books that I really want to read and. Yeah, and it's also, I think this idea of shopping your shelves or shopping your closet is very satisfying where people are like, oh, I don't need to spend more. But this is kind of like Sarah in her year of no buying. It's like, I have a lot that I haven't even tackled that I already own. Let me do that. And I do think that that will be very, very satisfying. So I'm super excited about it. How about you, Elizabeth? Have you thought about what you want this summer to hold for you? You do have an odd summer since you have a working summer.
- [10:11]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, I have thought about it and I actually wrote about it on our substack Gretchen a couple weeks ago. I want to have a yacht rock summer.
- [10:20]
Gretchen Rubin
See, I did not know this term until you told me about it, and I think it's so hilarious.
- [10:25]
Elizabeth Craft
Yacht rock is music that's defined by being well produced and having pleasing melodies. I don't call it easy listening, but it's like just above easy listening. Let's say Michael McDonald is the king, or let's say captain of yacht rock.
- [10:40]
Gretchen Rubin
So this is the idea that you're lounging on your yacht and this is what's playing in the background?
- [10:44]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, I think so. Yacht.
- [10:46]
Gretchen Rubin
Your sailboat, your white Lotus vacation.
- [10:49]
Elizabeth Craft
Exactly. So I noticed there's a SiriusXM channel. That is the yacht rock.
- [10:54]
Gretchen Rubin
Oh.
- [10:55]
Elizabeth Craft
And I thought, boy, yacht rock always puts me in the mood for summer. And so I decided what I'm going to do is whenever I have the choice, I'm going to default to yacht rock. So driving or maybe walking the dogs, sitting outside in the backyard. And that puts me in a summer mindset. So I'm like, oh, it's summer. Because I really only want to listen to yacht rock in the summer.
- [11:20]
Gretchen Rubin
Interesting.
- [11:21]
Elizabeth Craft
And I've chosen the song Rich Girl by Holland Oates as my official yacht rock song this summer because I love that song and it's like number three, I think, on the list of yacht rock songs.
- [11:34]
Gretchen Rubin
Ah.
- [11:35]
Elizabeth Craft
So I'm just. You know what? It's a mindset.
- [11:37]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
- [11:37]
Elizabeth Craft
So it's a mindset summer. It's not about really doing something like making it through a pile of books or having a picnic every week. It's just about.
- [11:45]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [11:46]
Elizabeth Craft
Retaining a mindset for summer, which will then hopefully make me enjoy my summer and absorb it in a way that I don't always do.
- [11:55]
Gretchen Rubin
First of all, it's nice to feel the seasons, to say, like, the summer is different from the fall and the winter and the spring. Like, I think there's something very pleasing about that, like the idea that we moved. Even if you're in LA or San Francisco or someplace that doesn't really have classic seasons that, like I experienced in New York City or that we experienced in Kansas City growing up. But there is something I think of, like, viewing time that way. And also, you know, after working on life in five senses and being so focused on the senses, this is interesting because it's using music as a way to cue your surroundings and your mindset through your senses. Just the way, you know, a lot of people will say that they'll pick a perfume or a particular scented lotion that they will use on their honeymoon or only when they're in Maine or something like that. So then they can use a smell to bring them back to a vacation mindset or a honeymoon mindset or whatever it might be. And I love the idea that this is like a whole movement. Everybody is sort of like, oh, this is a kind of music that gives you a kind of feeling that puts you in its surroundings and vibe.
- [12:57]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. It's like everything's all right. That's the vibe.
- [13:00]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah.
- [13:00]
Elizabeth Craft
Might be brokenhearted, but it's a well produced brokenheartedness.
- [13:04]
Gretchen Rubin
You're super stressed out, but you're listening to your yacht rock and it's gonna remind you that it's summer vibes. Okay. But. So I have to confess to you, Elizabeth, that my happiness bully side is trying to. What would I call it? Encourage? Suggest? Nag? Badger? I don't know. All this kind of is in the future, but I would love for Eliz and Eleanor to make this their summer of getting their driver's licenses, because they both know how to drive, but they need to practice and they both have failed. But a lot of people fail in New York City. It's really hard to pass a thing, and it's really administratively complicated. And you have to show that you took driver's ed for your insurance. And in all honesty, it is very arduous. But they're both big enough that I'm like, this is not my problem. To solve this arduousness, I am quite confident that both of you can figure out how to do this if you decide that you want to. But you can't push a rope.
- [13:59]
Elizabeth Craft
Right.
- [13:59]
Gretchen Rubin
But I'm like, but think about how wonderful it would be if you had the summer driver's licenses. They're both in New York City for the summer. You could make it a sisterly adventure. Yes. Another friend of mine with kids the same age was like, maybe we can pit our kids against each other. Maybe we can make it a challenge and have a prize. I'm like, look, if it'll work, I'll do it. I'll pitch in for that prize. Like, we grew up in the Midwest. I just do feel like it's good to have a driver's license. And I can both drive. I'm like, the hard part is learning to drive. You both know how to drive.
- [14:26]
Elizabeth Craft
Yeah.
- [14:27]
Gretchen Rubin
That went to law school and never took the bar exam. And the bar exam is genuinely a horrible experience. But I'm just like, don't you just wanna, like, have done that? But driver's license is arguably even more valuable to the general person. I could see why. If you're like, I'm not gonna be a lawyer. I don't need to take the bar exam. But a driver's license, it's just a very, very useful thing to have.
- [14:47]
Elizabeth Craft
Well, I have a question. Can they take the test where you have your lake house?
- [14:51]
Gretchen Rubin
They can.
- [14:52]
Elizabeth Craft
Or do they have to take it in the city?
- [14:54]
Gretchen Rubin
They can. And, you know, we did this even in Kansas City. Like, you wouldn't take it in Kansas City. You drive out to where it would just be, like, a more mellow experience. They absolutely could do that. There's a lot of ways that they could do it that would make it easier and more fun, but you can't push a rope.
- [15:09]
Elizabeth Craft
And I will say, Gretch, as someone who has yet to acquire her real id, I do relate to the dread of red tape. That.
- [15:20]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay, but can I just say this? Can I just say this? I don't have a real ID either, but Eliza does. Eliza went and waited in the regular line for three hours, and then they Couldn't do it because like their computer went down. Then she made, I guess they had like early morning expedited. If you go at 7am and there's expedited. So then she went back super early and got it done. I'm like, if you can do that, you can get a driver's lice license. She's super resourceful. They're both very resourceful. They could both do this. You know what I mean? Yes, Benny Pee pee. People do it.
- [15:48]
Elizabeth Craft
My friend Dan got his license when I think he was about 48 or 50, so.
- [15:54]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, Jamie was out of college when he got his because he grew up in New York City and didn't know how to drive. But I keep saying to them, you know how to drive, get the license.
- [16:01]
Elizabeth Craft
Well, in Gretchen, you and I need to do our reading retreat this summer. We wanted to have a summer reading retreat. So we have to get that planned so summer doesn't slip by without that happening.
- [16:13]
Gretchen Rubin
That is a really good point because it's coming up now. We need to carve that out. We don't even have a vision for it. Exactly. We need to come up with a concept.
- [16:21]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes.
- [16:21]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay, well, let us know if you do try this at home and how choosing a summer of blank works for you. And what are you choosing? Are you choosing a vibe? Are you choosing reading? Are you choosing what are. What are you choosing? It'll be interesting to know. Let us know on Instagram threads, TikTok, Facebook. Drop us an email@podcastretchenrubin.com or as always, you can go to the show Notes. This is episode 535. For everything related to this episode.
- [16:46]
Elizabeth Craft
Coming up, we have not one but but two happiness hacks. But first, this break, Gretch. On this podcast, we talk a lot about how to make our lives happier. But you really can't pursue your happiest life if you're struggling with your relationship with food or your body. Eating disorders are a serious mental illness and they can affect people of any age, gender, or body size. They have a serious negative impact on physical and mental health and make it pretty impossible to be, well, happy.
- [17:28]
Gretchen Rubin
Eating disorders can show up in a lot of different ways. It might look like restrictive eating, compulsive exercise, or feeling out of control when you eat. If you're concerned about your eating habits or you're worried about someone in your life, we wanted to introduce you to Equip. Equip is a fully virtual evidence based eating disorder treatment program that helps patients achieve lasting recovery at home. If you think that you or a loved one could be struggling with an eating disorder. Don't wait to get help. Visit Equip Health Happier to learn more. That's Equip Health Happier.
- [18:05]
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Hey, Julia Louis Dreyfus here. If you listen to me on my Wiser Than Me podcast, you probably already know that I'm an investor and an evangelist for the Mill Food Recycler. There are a lot of reasons to love mill, but for me it's all about the impact. Keeping food out of the garbage is one of the most powerful things we can do to help the planet every single day. We're talking banana peels, carrot tops, old takeout. When that stuff heads to the landfill, it becomes a huge driver of climate change. If you already compost, great. But of course there's the smell, the flies, the running to the curb every day with a little leaking compost bag made of cornstarch. That's where MILL comes in. It makes keeping food out of the trash as easy as dropping it in. It can handle nearly anything from a turkey carcass to like 20 avocado pits. It works automatically while you sleep. You can keep filling it for weeks and it never ever smells. Mill makes dry, nutrient rich grounds that you can use in your garden, add to your compost, feed to your chickens, or MILL can get them back to a small farm for you, but you kind of have to live with Mill to really get it and that's why they offer a risk free trial. Go to mill.com wiser for an exclusive offer.
- [19:20]
Gretchen Rubin
And now for two happiness hacks because who wants to stop with just one hack? The first one comes from Ashley. It's about physical magazines.
- [19:27]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, she said. I liked your comments about physical magazines from episode 523 and started to fixate on the idea. I also love magazines and decided to reintroduce them to my life. I have an 8 month old baby and have had a hard time reading in this new phase of my life. Even though I identify as a reader by switching to magazines, I am serving multiple purposes. I can read more easily because of the shorter format that is easier to handle. I am on my phone less, which is a behavior. I want a role model in front of my child and because I'm not on my phone I am less distracted, also leading to more reading. I went to a local bookstore and grabbed two literary magazines, Plowshares from Emerson College and the Paris Review, and a copy of Ms. Magazine, which I did not know was still in print to try before committing to any subscriptions. Thank you for reminding me of my previous love of magazines and how they are a nice addition to this phase of my life. Life.
- [20:24]
Gretchen Rubin
I love this. It's serving so many positive purposes. That's fantastic.
- [20:28]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. And Gretch, we were just talking about strategies for getting one's driver's license and dealing with the dmv.
- [20:36]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes.
- [20:37]
Elizabeth Craft
And Nick had a similar thought. She said, hi, Gretchen and Elizabeth. I love the podcast and have a tip for making a trip to the DMV less harrowing. You can go to any DMV in New York. So you could take the Amtrak upstate to a town like Hudson, go to a museum, have lunch and go to the dmv, then take the Amtrak back home. Just don't forget any documents you need and you can have a pleasant day upstate.
- [21:02]
Gretchen Rubin
I love this. Which is like, instead of just trying to jam an unpleasant task into a day, make a whole day of it. Say, I'm going to turn it into some pleasant adventure. This is great because you could have.
- [21:15]
Elizabeth Craft
It's a pairing strategy.
- [21:16]
Gretchen Rubin
It's a pairing strategy. It's also kind of a reason, like, a quest is more fun than a jaunt. So you're like, okay, I'll go get my dmv, but I'll wrap it into this thing. You could go with two people like Elizabeth. If you lived here. You and I could both go together if you were a New York State resident. I just thought this was a really, really good idea. Maybe something for Eli Said Eleanor to consider. They could do it. So anyway, that's a very imaginative solution to a problem that many people are facing about the DMV in the United States these days. And now for read 25 and 25, we got a really great question from Ursula.
- [21:46]
Elizabeth Craft
She said, I am looking for an author to read this summer for my summer of question mark. I am a daily reader and love many authors, but I would love to hear recommendations from you and Elizabeth about what authors or series make for a great summer of reading.
- [22:02]
Gretchen Rubin
Right.
- [22:02]
Elizabeth Craft
What a fun question.
- [22:04]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah. No. So back to this idea of picking your summer up. Many people do pick a summer of a certain author. So listen, let's just throw out some of our own personal favorite authors in kind of the major categories. Okay, so let's start with popular fiction. If I'm saying popular fiction, I'm saying Stephen King.
- [22:20]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes.
- [22:20]
Gretchen Rubin
Even if you don't like horror, which I don't love horror. He has a lot that are not horror. He's got something for everyone and he's just such a great storyteller. And you know this because of you're doing the whole story. Slow read. I mean, he's a genius.
- [22:32]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. We just did Unhappier in Hollywood, a slow read of his memoir about writing. But also, I would say the Stand, because that could take you the whole summer.
- [22:41]
Gretchen Rubin
That could take you the whole summer. That's a book. I stayed home from work to read one day I played hooky from work because I could not stop reading the Stand. That's good.
- [22:48]
Elizabeth Craft
And then I would say you could do a whole summer of Kristin Hannah. She is a popular historical novelist. I get so lost in her books. I find them so entertaining. Recently, she wrote a book called the Women about nurses in Vietn that everyone I've talked to who's read it has loved it.
- [23:06]
Gretchen Rubin
That's great.
- [23:07]
Elizabeth Craft
But she has other books, too. The Nightingale. Many others.
- [23:10]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah, many others. One that David Nichols is a writer. I've read several of his books and I remember I was laughing out loud. They're just great stories, extremely well told, very fun reads.
- [23:22]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. And then another author, Gretch, is Ellen Hildebrand. She has a bunch of books, all that take place in Nantucket. And then characters pop up, up from.
- [23:31]
Gretchen Rubin
Book to book fun.
- [23:33]
Elizabeth Craft
So if you really want books that are, you know, summer books that are on in a summer place. She's a lot of fun.
- [23:40]
Gretchen Rubin
So you fire up your yacht rock, and you get your Ellen Hildebrand novel and you're. You're ready.
- [23:45]
Elizabeth Craft
Exactly.
- [23:46]
Gretchen Rubin
Okay. So literary fiction. I have to put in a word for the person that I have been reading every novel, loving it. It is not for everyone, Iris Murdoch, but I truly think they're just so good. It's the kind of thing that if you like it, you'll love it. And if it's not your kind of thing, you probably won't run a read anymore. But she's kind of fallen out of view a little bit. I would just suggest Iris Murdock and then some others.
- [24:14]
Elizabeth Craft
To mention Willa Catherine.
- [24:16]
Gretchen Rubin
Love, Willa Catherine. Our father is reading Willa Cather right now and loving it. Willa Cather is so good. Marilynne Robinson, I think she is maybe the best novel novelists writing today in the United States. Really? I love it. Read Gilead. It is a beautiful book. Gilead is being in the mind, inside a pure mind. It is such a beautiful book. And then there's all these books that are related to the same characters. They're all so good. Housekeeping is really good. I love those.
- [24:46]
Elizabeth Craft
Graham Greene and Elizabeth Strout and We interviewed Elizabeth Strout for her latest book, Tell Me Everything.
- [24:53]
Gretchen Rubin
Yes. She's written so many. Some are connected to the other one. So if you like sort of a built out universe or you can read them as standalones or she has standalone novels. Yeah. There's something so smooth about Elizabeth Strodd, I don't know, that makes her sound. I don't know, I feel like that's scamming her with praise. But there is something about just the way you just turn the pages that is exceptional. Now a category that you do not like, Elizabeth, that I love is fantasy. Unless you've developed a fantasy loving, like behind my back, unbeknownst to me. Well, Game of Thrones, the books are really, really great. If you love the TV show, I think you will really, really like the books because there's just more. There's just more to it. And then a fantasy author I really love a series I really love is Octavia Butler. Now a lot of people know the Parable, those are not my favorite. My favorite is the Patternist series. So I highly recommend those. But I will say a lot of people really like the Parables ones. So I would look at those. Love Octavia Butler.
- [25:53]
Elizabeth Craft
And then if you're looking for more of a mystery series, Louise Penny' Hector Gamache of course is a huge favorite.
- [26:00]
Gretchen Rubin
And then Tana French, she has her Dublin Murder Squad series. And then she also has other books that are standalone. I have many friends who like the day a Tana French book comes out. Go out and buy it. Here's something where again, like, I guess it's sort of like Iris Murdoch. If you like it, you will go all the way. And if you do not like it, you will stop at page 50. And this is Karl Uwe Knauska. So he's sort of known for writing this kind of. I don't know if you would call it auto fiction, but it's kind of a novel. It's kind of based on his life called My Struggle, which it's many volumes, big volumes. I cannot get enough of these books. I love them. It's funny, I talk about him all the time. At one of my book events, somebody came up and she's like, I'm going to teach you how to say his name correctly. And I just tried and tried and tried. I simply cannot make those sounds. I cannot make that vowel sound. Carl Uve Knausgard is the closest I can get. So if this is hurting your ears, I really apologize. But you may not like My Struggle. But then he also has a series that is not complete yet called the Evening Star series, which I'm also running out and going to the bookstore and buying them the day they hit the shelves. I love them, but he just has this very sprawling style that some people love and some people do not love. And I will just say what you see is what you get. If you don't like it after 50 pages, don't keep reading. Because there's so much opportunity cost in reading his books because they take a while to read. And if you don't like it now, you probably won't like it later. But if it's your kind of thing, it's your kind of thing. So I love it.
- [27:34]
Elizabeth Craft
What are a couple of science fiction series, Gretch? I don't read science fiction.
- [27:39]
Gretchen Rubin
I'm going to talk about delightful science fiction because some science fiction, which I love, is very brooding and dark and claustrophobic and apocalyptic, and I love that kind of science fiction. But if you're in the mood for kind of more like, like of a summer science fiction, which has a lighter vibe, I really recommend the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. These are more like novellas, but there's a series and Murderbot is the main character. He is a, you know, an artificial intelligence robot or Android or whatever you call him. It's like a very, very snarky sense of humor. Anyway, extremely charming, fun books, very exciting, lots of twists, but good. And then Becky Chambers has this series called the Wayfarer series. They have titles that one cannot remember. They have an unus flavor for science fiction. And everybody I know that reads science fiction, I'm always like, isn't it interesting how Becky Chambers, they just have a different mood than a typical science fiction. They're really, really good. I really like those. I think the series, they can be read together or they can be read as standalones. I think my very favorite is the second one with a name I can't remember. But I like them all and I just whipped through them when I discovered them. So the Wayfarer series is the ones that I've read by Becky Changing and then thrillers. Elizabeth, if you're writing a thriller and you read a lot of thrillers, what do you recommend?
- [28:52]
Elizabeth Craft
Yeah, I'll mention a couple authors I really like, Ruth Ware. She has a bunch of books, and I've enjoyed many of those. And then also Gretchen Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen. Greer, who was your first editor.
- [29:07]
Gretchen Rubin
Friend of our very first editor. Yep.
- [29:10]
Elizabeth Craft
But not saying this just because we love Greer. Love the thrillers that she's written so highly recommend those for your summer reading.
- [29:20]
Gretchen Rubin
You know, and it occurs to me too that another way that you could think about instead of having a series or an author, maybe there's one book that you read very subtly like the Stand where the way we're doing this slow read of War and Peace over the course of the year. You could pick a book and read it over the summer. That could be another, another approach if you were thinking, well, or like with Carla Uwe Knauska, you're like, okay, I'm only gonna read one volume, but I'll just do it over the course of the summer. It's just, you know, there's no one right way to do it. It's fun to think about different approaches that we could take.
- [29:50]
Elizabeth Craft
Okay, Gretch. Coming up, we'll hear what some of listeners favorite words are. But first this break, let's talk about the Defender 110. It is a vehicle built for the model modern explorer. Gretch I have a friend who's extremely adventurous and she loves her Defender 110. It's a vehicle that looks tough because it is tough. The Defender boasts an exterior design for optimum durability. It has a raised hood and sculpted grille that give the Defender 110amodern edge.
- [30:32]
Gretchen Rubin
Yeah, this 3D surround cameras with clear sight ground view that let you see underneath the vehicle and anticipate obstacles and rough terrain. Clearsight Rear View offers an unobstructed rear view even when you can't see through the back window. Driver aid technologies make driving and parking simpler. Intuitive driver displays are customizable to your journey. Design your Defender 110@landroverusa.com Visit land roverusa.com to learn more about the Defender 110. Explore the Defender 110@land roverusa.com Summer is just around the corner and the folks at Mint Mobile have a hot take. Say bye bye to your overpriced wireless plans. Jaw dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages, Mint Mobile is here to rescue you. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network network.
- [31:33]
Elizabeth Craft
Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts this year. Skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get your summer savings and shop premium Wireless plans@mintmobile.com Gretchen that's mintmobile.com Gretchen Upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5 gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first 3, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.
- [32:11]
Gretchen Rubin
Melissa in episode 5:32 we talked about making a list of your favorite words and we got such a response. It turns out that people love to do this. This is a really and it was so fun to read what people chose. This is a delightful exercise.
- [32:25]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. So we'll just share some Rebecca said, I've been keeping a lexicon, another cool word with K and X sounds for years. Most words are common but very meaty. As Liz said, A few of my favorites are colors. Azure, salmon, cobalt, amber, copper.
- [32:44]
Gretchen Rubin
See, I love that these are color words. You know, in my unpublished, I don't know piece that I wrote about my color pilgrimage, I wrote a lot about color names. So I got a big kick out of that. Gwen wrote Ephemeral, I collage, journal, scrapbook and create my own postcards for international exchange. So I love collecting and incorporating ephemera and ideas. They inspired hardware store paint, vintage boxes and tins, magazines, especially the New Yorker magazine covers and the New York Times Style magazine. Random scraps of fabric and lace, ticket stubs, file folders, old letters, text papers, kids drawings, sewing patterns. So much stuff. So she loves the word ephemera. That is so fun.
- [33:22]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, Donna said. I wanted to share my favorite word. My children are much older now, but about 15 years ago we lived in a neighborhood that had tons of trick or treaters for Halloween. Halloween Pinterest was very popular at the time, and I saw an idea for painting mason jars orange, drawing faces on them with black markers to make them look like jack O lanterns, and placing candles inside to line the driveway. My husband also told me that when he was little, his neighborhood would fill brown lunch bags with sand, place a candle inside, and line the driveway with them on Christmas Eve. He said, it looks so pretty. I was talking to my daughters, they were probably about 13 and 15 years old, about the mason jars and the brown bag bags with sand. And my daughter said, do you mean luminaries? I was so happy I had never thought to use the word luminaries. But after she said it, I started calling my Halloween Mason jar candles luminaries. And I've loved using the word ever since. My family loves this story. Thank you for bringing back this good memory and helping me remember a favorite word and a word that I need to use more often.
- [34:28]
Gretchen Rubin
I love that. Yeah, it's such a beautiful word. Susan said, I love thinking of words that are fun to say. A few of my favorites are spigot Faucet Creek, and Paprika. I love paprika. That's a great word.
- [34:43]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, that is a fun word. Jenny said, I have been keeping a list for years. Ethereal, Mystic, Tranquil, Ephemeral, Quill, Etheria, Acadia, Imperatrix, Evanescence, Nourish, Gloaming, Dusk, Cypress, Amaranth, and Aura.
- [35:06]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, and she picked up on ephemeral. Who knew that this is like a widely admired word.
- [35:11]
Elizabeth Craft
Yeah.
- [35:12]
Gretchen Rubin
Hannah said. Oh, this is hilarious. Hannah said. One category of my favorite words are what I call Nancy Drew words. It's been many years since I devoured that series of books, but when I encounter one of these words, I make a mental note that it's in Nancy Drew word. Some examples capsize, Maroon sedan, Intrude, or Intruder. And this cracked me up because I read a Nancy Shrew mystery to Eleanor when she was little and we would always joke about sleuth because it's always like the girl sleuth or the young sleuth or the teenage sleuth. And another word that I've, I think I've only seen it in Nancy Drew book. And I actually just looked it up because I was like, I don't even think I actually know precisely what it means is jalopy. I kind of thought a jalopy was like a convertible. Like it was actually sort of like a kind of car. But it turns out a jalopy is just an old car that's in bad shape. I love this Nancy Drew word.
- [36:03]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes. I also for some reason associate jalopies with noir, but that makes sense because that's the kind of old timey mystery.
- [36:13]
Gretchen Rubin
But you know, you could do this with a lot of authors. Are there words that they use or even overuse? I remember with my when I wrote my draft of 40 ways look at Winston Churchill and editors said you've used the word pageant too often. A word like pageant you can use like twice in a book. And I had used it like six times and they were like, that's too much pageant. And then I remember in Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, if you look at how many times she describes Edward Cullen as marble, it's a lot.
- [36:41]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes.
- [36:41]
Gretchen Rubin
Once you notice it, it does get a little bit distracting because it's marble this and marble that.
- [36:46]
Elizabeth Craft
That is hysterical.
- [36:47]
Gretchen Rubin
And I was told, this is funny. I was told that I used the word inchoate in conversation more than anyone else. Somebody just said, like, you do. You use the word inchoate more than anybody I've ever met. I'm like, huh. Okay. I hadn't noticed that. Have you noticed?
- [37:02]
Elizabeth Craft
I've noticed that when you say it.
- [37:04]
Gretchen Rubin
Huh. Okay. It's a good word.
- [37:06]
Elizabeth Craft
It is a good word. Okay. And now, Gretch, it is time for demerits and gold stars, and this week, you are up with a happiness demerit.
- [37:14]
Gretchen Rubin
Well, this is kind of related to driver's licenses. I am a fearful driver. I do not like to drive. And, Elizabeth, you're the same, but you drive all the time because you're in Las Vegas Angeles. But one of the things that makes me more fearful is that I don't do it very much because I live in New York City. And recently we went up Eleanor's home from college, which is huge. Yay. So we went up to get her, pick her up at her dorm room, and drive her home. And it's a long drive. And I knew kind of as I was there, I was like, I should say to Jamie, let me drive part of the time. Some of it's really tough driving, but some of it is just very much, like, straightforward. You know, you just get on the highway and drive straight for a long time. I should have done it because familiarity helps me do it, and I want to stay in the practice of driving even if I do not feel like it. And I just didn't push myself to do it. And I should have.
- [38:03]
Elizabeth Craft
Yep.
- [38:03]
Gretchen Rubin
I probably should have said to Jamie, like, the day before, hey, you should really push me to drive, because it would have been nice for him. I mean, he drove up and back. We did it in one day. It was a hard day for him. Yeah. So I should have said. Said, I'm not going to volunteer, even though I should. But you should say to me, hey, why don't you drive?
- [38:20]
Elizabeth Craft
Well, why don't you say now, when you drive her to school the fall, that you'll do some of the driving?
- [38:25]
Gretchen Rubin
That's true. That's a really, really good point. That's true. Okay, Elizabeth, what is your gold star?
- [38:30]
Elizabeth Craft
Well, Gretchen, I mentioned that Happier in Hollywood, Sarah and I have a substack now. Of course, I have to say, go to happier in hollywood.com and scroll down and put in your email to subscribe to our newsletter. But as part of that, we've been doing a slow read of the Stephen King book on writing a memoir of the craft. And we finished our slow read, and then Sarah and I hosted a zoom with readers who wanted to get together and discuss the book. And can I just tell you, we had a group of such thoughtful, interesting people from all over. I mean, from Lawrence, Kansas to Oxford, England, Toronto, New Jersey. I mean, these people were from all over. Everyone had such interesting things to say. We all agreed that we did get a lot more out of it. Reading slowly rather than just flying through it.
- [39:23]
Gretchen Rubin
Sure. Because it is a book that it's very compelling. Like you could just sit down and whip through it because it's a good read.
- [39:29]
Elizabeth Craft
But it was just so nice to meet a group of just smart, interesting people and talk about it. A book. So my gold star is to our slow readers because it was a great conversation.
- [39:40]
Gretchen Rubin
What's a pop up book club?
- [39:41]
Elizabeth Craft
Yes, we've talked about having a pop up book club and we'll pop it up again next time we do this, which we're going to do in a few weeks. We'll start a new book about writing and then we'll do this again.
- [39:54]
Gretchen Rubin
Have you figured out which one we're debating? Oh, there's so many good ones. I'm really curious to hear which one you pick the resource for this week. Design your summer reading list because, you know, we've been talking a lot about reading. What do you want to put on your list this week? In the Happier app, you will find daily prompts for designing your summer reading list. If you want to Participate in the Read 25 and 25 challenge, this is a way to like, you know, we've been talking about creating a certain vibe for the summer and this is a way you can do it. You can create a sort of special reading experience that's just what you want. So you can log in today or you can download the app if you haven't. That is thehappierapp.com and speaking of reading, Elizabeth, what are we reading right now? Not this summer, but right now I.
- [40:37]
Elizabeth Craft
Am reading When Stars Align by Melissa de la Cruz.
- [40:41]
Gretchen Rubin
And I am reading A Flame Learning from Silence by Pico Iyer. And that's it for this episode of Happier. Remember to try this at home. Consider planning a summer of blank. Let us know if you tried it. And what does your summer hold for you?
- [40:57]
Elizabeth Craft
Thanks to our executive producer Chuck Reed and everyone at Lemonada.
- [41:00]
Gretchen Rubin
Here's your rhyming reminder. If the the show sparks joy in your soul, nudge others to enroll. Love that.
- [41:07]
Elizabeth Craft
Until next week. I'm Elizabeth Craft.
- [41:09]
Gretchen Rubin
And I'm Gretchen Rubin. Thanks for joining us. Onward and upward.
- [41:25]
Elizabeth Craft
Bret. You know what a fun summer of would be? A summer of short trips. So like a summer of weekend trips. Well, that's something that would be fun in California, where there are so many different places to go that are nearby.
- [41:37]
Gretchen Rubin
But that's a great example of something that can be done at any time, is often done at no time, because you'd have to sort of plan that out in advance. You'd have to think about, like, where do we want to go? Where would we stay? You know?
- [41:47]
Elizabeth Craft
Yeah.
- [41:48]
Gretchen Rubin
But then it would be an amazing summer. That's a great idea. From the Onward Prince project.